International Employment Relationships-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the International Employment Relationships. Answer: Introduction Employment Relationship is said to be a legal bonding between the employee and the employers. Employment Relationship exists in an organization when the employee receives a certain amount of remuneration in return of the work and services performed by him. Employee relationships pave the way for the employees to gain access to the employee rights and benefits that are involved with the employment in the form of labor laws and social security. The presence of the employment relationship determines the application of the labor and social security law in the workplace. The following relationship module serves as the most important point of reference to determine the provisions and extent of the different labor laws that are to be provided to the workers. Importance of Employment Relationship Employment Relationship has became one of the integral parts for the workers who work for different organizations but lack protection measures. The main factors that lead to the origins of Employment Relationship are; The laws that protect the employees do not provide an overall security to them. The scope of the law is narrow which increases the chance of risk for the employees. The employers of the organization have created the image of the relationship in such a way that it makes the law ambiguous in nature and raises doubts to the existence of the law. Absence of the compliance and enforcement of the law makes it even more difficult for the employees. The clauses of the relationship are not clearly mentioned as to what is the law, what are the rights that are enjoyed by the employee, who are the actual employers, who are the enforcers of the law and many more as such. The smooth functioning of the organization depends on the presence of a smooth employee and employer relationship. The employee relationship is essential for the organization because of a number of different factors; Workers cannot take decisions alone and needs expert guidance to make sure that the decisions are perfect in nature. The workers may miss out on some minute details which may be pointed out by others in the workplace. Maintaining a perfect relationship with the fellow workers is utmost important to avoid any complications in the workplace. Productivity increases when the work done by the employees are shared among all. Decreasing additional load will help the employees within the organization perform better. A proper employee management helps the employers to segregate different works within the workers to make sure that the work is completed within a stipulated time period. Presence of a healthy Employee Relationship discourages problems within the employees. Employees seem to adjust more easily with each other. The presence of such a positive environment helps the employees to concentrate totally on work and increase their productivity. A healthy relation between the employers and the employee helps to establish a good communication that helps in the smooth functioning of the organization. The main functioning of the organization depends on a healthy employee relationship. Employment Relationship in France France is the sixth largest economy of the world in terms of Gross Domestic Production. The country has a high rate of labor market participation of 63%. The employment relationship in the country is governed by different levels of legislation like employment agreements, company-level agreements and labor code of the European Union treaties and laws. These following set of laws applies to all the workers or employees who work under employee agreements and are based on French laws. The intervention of the Government of France in Employment Relations highlights the failure of the unions and the employees to use voluntary collective arguments. French Government is one of the largest employers in the country as it has a strength of 5 million employees and thus the policies of the government exerts pressure on different private sector enterprises to change the laws and provide more benefits and security to the employees. The policy of the French Government has changed since the 1980s and a number of measures were taken to reduce unemployment in the country. The introduction of the Aubry Law is seen as a revolutionary measure for the employers and the unions as they were encouraged to strike a negotiation between them in view of maintaining the wages and supporting the cause of recruitment to decrease unemployment. The governments that have existed in France have created a number of different representative bodies at the enterprise level. The delegates appointed by the government are involved in dealing with the different grievances of the employees while the work councils look after the formation of the employee constitution. Though unions are present and active in large scale industries of France absence of such bodies in small and medium scale industries is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Employment Relationship in Denmark Denmark is one of the few countries in Europe that has a liberal economic structure. The Government structure has allowed the formation of trade unions in both the private as well as the public sector enterprises. According to (Mallett Wapshott, 2014) Denmark has been slowly shifting towards a multi level regulated system as the government has adopted the policy of decentralization. Some of the past conflicts in the industrial sector of Denmark have helped in the evolution of the regulation of Denmarks labor market. Denmark strictly follows the collective Bargaining policy to regulate the pay structure and the working conditions for the employees. The policies of the market economy are developed by the coordinated efforts of the Trade Unions, employee associations and the political administration (De Cuyper Isaksson, 2017). The public sector employment is the highest in the country with strength of 35%. Denmark has an employment participation rate of 75% which is the highest among the OECD countries (Saridakis et al. 2016). The Danish IR model is based upon the self regulating principles of the Unions and the employer associations. The employee relationship revolutionized only after the intervention of the Government. The unions and enterprises developed a strong bonding in the enterprise level which ensured the establishment of a large number of union branches and cooperation committees (Cobb, 2016). Employee associations in the private sector companies of Denmark were as high as 150 but diminished to a mere 14 after the amalgamation of a large number of such small associations. In the present scenario 3 of the existing 14 associations have employee strength of 90%. The public sector of Denmark has a huge importance to the economy of the country as contractual employment has overthrown the status of civil servants (Tepper Simon, 2015). Among the present strength of public sector employees, three fourth of them are engaged in working at municipalities and regions while another one fourth is engaged in the national level working. The role of the government of Denmark is not much bigger than compared to other European countries but has a significant amount of importance (Kucera Roncolato, 2014). The government always consults with the unions and employer associations on forming different boards or commissions to look into different matters related to employee relationship. The sel f regulation of the labor market is threatened by some key pressures; European Union Regulation has been increasing gradually which has posed a serious threat to the labor market of Denmark. Political parties influencing the labor market. Pressures occurring at the enterprise level. Comparison between Employment Relationship in France and Denmark ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF DENMARK States Role is very much important in employee relationship in France Collective Bargaining System is dependent on international laws and tripartite discussions Collective Bargaining is as high as 84% There are three types of collective bargaining systems Trade Unionism in France is based on more of a ideological and political point of view. There have been cases of intense hostility towards employees from the state machineries. The relationship between the state and the labor and the unions is the most charged in comparison to the other countries of Europe. Political Rivalry between the unions and the organizations is fierce in the mentioned country. States role is limited than other European countries Collective Bargaining System is self regulated. The relation between the organizations and any form of industrial conflicts are fixed by mutual agreements. The government consults with the unions and the employer associations before appointing any councils, boards or commissions for looking into employee grievances. Coverage collective agreements of Denmark is as high as 85% The collective bargaining in the private sector is close to 75% One fourth of the employees in the public sector are not covered by any collective agreements. Labor Market parties have the intention to maintain strong labor market regulations Public Sector unions demanded an increase in the labor wage in 2008 Basic Trade Union Organization of France and Denmark Mainly Industry/Sector Organizational Structure Mixed (Industry/General/Occupational) Organizational Structure Single Main Confederation Denmark, France Multiple Confederations France Denmark Table No 1 Trade Union organization Source- (Countouris, 2014) One of the most recent developments that have been happening for quite a long time is the mergers of the Trade Unions. Both France and Denmark have seen such a trend which has spread in Europe and other parts of the world. The number for member unions has declined and there have been constant threat of further diminishing in the near future (Suleman, Lagoa Suleman, 2017). The establishment of the Unified Service Sector Union in 2001 in Germany is believed to be the best example of such a merger. The above mentioned German Workers Union has a strength of around 3million members which is the largest of any unio0n across the world. Rising number of unemployment in the manufacturing industry is the main cause behind the decrease in the number of members of the union (Avendao, 2014). Though there has been membership loss in other European countries both Denmark and Sweden have seen a slow but steady rise in the levels of employment (Avendao, 2014). Country Union Density Denmark 87.5% France 9.1% Table No 2 Union Density Source- (Blanpain Bisom, 2014) The above table shows the density of Unions in both the selected countries. The density of union is much lower in France than Denmark which shows the amount of power the unions have in Denmark. Such a trend has happened due to the participation of the government in employee relationship (Green Livanos, 2017). As mentioned earlier in the essay the government of Denmark enjoys a considerable amount of power when it comes to the decision making processes for the benefit of the employees and to make sure that the employees enjoy the best possible environment in the workplace. On the other hand the government of France is totally dependent on the decision making powers of the Unions and the employer organizations to maintain a proper employee relationship in the workplace of the mentioned country (Countouris, 2014). The French Union Set up has a work council which is a council that must be set up by all firms that are involved in employing more than 50 employees and comprises employer representatives, employee organizations, employees and deputies of employers. Meetings are held every month and the employers presides the meeting. The representative union can appoint an observer to the council (Rosenbloom, 2014). These councils generally formulate the welfare issues of the employees and have little or no power in making specific union decisions. Collective bargaining in French employment relationship is based on the Employee Participation Act of 1982 which gives the employees the right to withdraw from workplace conditions that are supposedly not suitable for them. The act was amended later and gave more rights to the employees for improving their working conditions by negotiating with the employers (Brewster, Houldsworth, Sparrow Vernon, 2016). Since the year 2001 compulsory bargaining at plant level have been extended to employment rights that are equal to each other and also provided medical benefits. The employees are now able to take compulsory sick leaves on their discretion. Collective bargaining in France is in three different set ups namely multi-industry, industry and enterprise. More than 80% of the plant level arrangements are in companies that employ more than 50 persons. Apart from the three collective bargaining arrangements France also has a national social security protecting institutions and many of them a re managed by the joint help of the employers associations and the main five representative associations (Salaman, 2015). Collective bargaining in Denmark is more than 80% of the labor market in whole. The private sector bargaining is around 75% of the labor market. One fourth of the wage earners in the private sector are not covered by any agreement and they are all on individual contracts (Avendao, 2014). There has been the system of joint collective agreements between both the public and private sector in Denmark since the year 1980. The following has helped to create a leverage based system on the negotiation of a number of .different problems that the employees face in their workplace (Janssen, 2016). The earlier industrial conflicts in Denmark have been one of the main turning points for the new collective bargaining to formulate. The new negotiation process has seen a paradigm shift of the bargaining process from the confederations to the sector organizations and also retaining the coordination. The new system that was adapted during the beginning of the 1990s saw the formation of some coordinate d negotiation along with the establishment of some sector based organizations. According to (Dziewanowska, Pearce Zupan, 2016) this following factor can be said to be as a centralized decentralization that has been carried out by the different organizations in Denmark. Being a member of the European Union Denmark had to set the guidelines of the Union policy according to the international standards. This includes number of different factors like work culture, work timings, shift hours, part time and full time employment and many more as such. The establishment of the tripartite committee was established under a new legislation (Avendao, 2014). However the current strategies of the labor market have seen that the labor market parties have been influential to hold on their advantage and have a supreme political control over the labor organizations. Tripartite agreements are now more in common than the bipartite agreements as there have been a demand in the increase in the wage struct ure since the year 2008. Denmark unlike France has another main problem which it needs to tackle to get rid of the crisis of foreign workers from other European countries. (Bidwell et al. 2013) The influx of labors mainly from neighboring Poland has been a much talked about topic as the unions have found it a bit confusing on whether to bring these workers under the collective bargaining plans as they also represents a working community. Many companies take the advantage of not protecting the rights of these employees and often tend to appoint these men at a very low wage. The international pressure is however forcing the Danish industries to move back from such a position and now equal rights are being provided to each and everyone in the industry (Herriot, 2013). Denmark also faces an acute shortage of labor as there has been an increase in the percentage of aging population of the country as well as in Europe. A survey by the Confederation of Danish industries has found out the shortage of skilled labors to around 30,000 which will be a huge problem for the industry. According to (Franon Marx, 2015) the shortage of skilled labors will lead to a rise in the number of the unskilled ones and thus the different organizations have to implement adequate training measures to employ skilled individuals in the workplace (Auer, 2016). France has also been facing the crisis of migrants as there has been an increase in the number of migrants from the war ravaged Middle East countries which pose a challenge for the employers organizations and the unions to bring them under the umbrella of the collective bargaining (Farnham et al. 2016). However both France and Denmark have been able to bring down the industrial disputes by a considerable amount and have ensured a smooth operational performance of the industries. Conclusion The following essay has been able to provide a clear picture of the international employment relations based on the pictures of the two European countries, Denmark and France. The aims and objectives of the essay has been met with ease as the writer has portrayed all the essential elements that was needed to make the essay more compact. A thorough analysis of the full essay will reveal some unknown facts of the Labor industry of France and Denmark. 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